Tsunamis in the News, 2019–2026: Event Peaks, Geography and Tone of Global Tsunami Coverage, and How It Compares with Research and Invention

We measure how tsunamis were covered in a global news index from January 2019 to July 2026, using 24,934 de-duplicated tsunami articles, and set that coverage beside 25,263 research papers and 388 patent families on tsunamis. Six results stand out: Event peaks. Tsunami attention comes in bursts. The largest share was in January 2022, the month of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai eruption, at 9.47 articles per 10,000 news articles, 5.49 times the 2019–2025 average of 1.73. July 2025, the month of the Kamchatka earthquake, had the most articles (1,897). Anniversaries. March 2021 (the tenth anniversary of the 2011 Tōhoku disaster) and December 2024 (the twentieth anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami) were the third and fourth highest months. Geography. Between January 2023 and July 2026, Japan held 26.76% of located tsunami news, 25.18 times its share of all news, and Indonesia is over-represented 30.53 times. The United States (0.56) and India (0.34) are under-represented. Oceania (2.73) and Asia (2.08) lead by continent. Within the United States, Hawaii (50.99) and Alaska (46.59) lead; within India, Tamil Nadu (4.59). Russia's tsunami attention rose 15.11-fold from 2023 to 2025. Tone and urgency. Of tsunami articles with a tone label in the same window, 75.3% were negative (all news: 33.6%), and 78.1% were rated critical priority (all news: 42.6%). Measurement. 22.37% of raw matches for tsunami vocabulary were figurative uses, name senses or earthquake reports that only noted the absence of a tsunami threat. Research and invention. Tsunami papers jumped 5.85-fold as a share of all papers from 2004 to 2005, then fell 39% between 2015 and 2025. Patent families peaked at 83 in 2013; the Japanese (41%) and Chinese (29.8%) offices hold most office filings.